Highlights from the 2013 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

The National Association of REALTORS® has long-established itself as a provider of valued data relevant to the industry. One of the organization’s most recent studies is the The 2013 Profile of Home Buyers andSellers, just released in November.

This annual NAR survey of recent home buyers and sellers provides key insight into respondents’ experiences with this important transaction. Topics covered in the report include who today’s buyers and sellers are, how they use the services of real estate professionals and what role the internet plays in the buying/selling process. Topics are presented in a user-friendly format designed to allow easy comparisons with previous studies through a mix of charts, graphs and tables.

Sixty-six percent of recent home buyers were married couples—the highest share since 2001.

For 42 percent of home buyers, the first step in the home-buying process was looking online for properties. Fourteen percent of home buyers first looked online for information about the home buying process.

The typical home buyer searched for 12 weeks and viewed 10 homes.

Eighty-eight percent of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker—a share that has steadily increased from 69 percent in 2001.

Eighty-eight percent of sellers were assisted by a real estate agent when selling their home.

Two-thirds of home sellers only contacted one agent before selecting the one to assist with their home sale.

The share of home sellers who sold their home without the assistance of a real estate agent was nine percent. Forty percent knew the buyer prior to home purchase.

REALTORS® will benefit from distinct report chapters covering the characteristics of home buyers, how home search processes take place, ways individuals finance purchases and how sellers conduct “for sale by owner” transactions. Use the full-data in this report to better address the most current trends in the industry, become a more valued-resource by understanding issues that are most significant to both buyers and sellers.

About the Survey:

The NAR mailed a 122-question survey in July 2013 to a national sample of 148,011 home buyers and sellers who purchased their homes between July 2012 and June 2013, using a random sample of county records. It generated 8,767 usable responses, weighted to be representative of sales on a geographic basis. The adjusted response rate was 6.1 percent. All information is characteristic of the 12-month period ending in June 2013 with the exception of income data, which are for 2012.